“Yes,” he said, feeling as if his entire future had just changed irrevocably with that single word.
She ushered him from the gallery, through a passage, and into a dimly lit bedchamber. She sat him on the bed and like some handmaiden of yore removed his shoes and stockings, unbuttoned his doublet, took it off and cast it aside, drew his shirt over his head, and then stripped him slowly of his breeches and close trousers. No one had undressed him since his childhood, and not once in the entirety of his marriage had he been naked with modest Judith.
“Lie back,” Lady Isabella told him, “and shut your eyes.” He caught the smoke of an extinguished candle, and next a wonderful, unidentifiable fragrance. He felt her hands, smooth with oil, massaging his tight muscles, from his neck, to his shoulders, then his chest and belly, and on to his thighs and calves; everywhere but his rigid sex. Her touch, when at last she touched him there, was paradise, and his whole body sang.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I.
Draycott woke in the featherbed to the lingering scent of Lady Isabella’s perfumed oil. Embarrassment consumed him as he thought of their sinful night: although he had not lain with her in true adultery, after the massage he had allowed her to lavish on him more intimate caresses that had sent him into paroxysms of joy. Then he must have slept.
He dared to open his eyes. She was curled up next to him, fully dressed on top of the counterpane, her face so young and seemingly innocent in repose. Anxious not to rouse her, he eased himself from the bed, and gathered his strewn garments and shoes from the floor. He burrowed a shaking hand into the lining of his doublet. The packet was undisturbed. He ran to the window and peered through the curtains. The sun was still low in the east: about six of the clock, he estimated. In the street he saw the usual dawn traffic, and servants scouring the steps of the houses; and, to his alarm, a party of Stanton’s militia on patrol.
He threw on his clothes, listening for any noises in the house. All was silent. Shoes tucked under one arm, he stole to the door; but as he reached a hand towards the latch, he heard her voice. “Mr. Draycott?”
He turned, his cheeks hot. “My lady, I don’t know what to say …”
“Say that next time you will please me.” She smiled serenely, and rose from the bed with a rustle of silk. “I’ll accompany you to the front door, though we must be very quiet. And in the afternoon we shall meet again, in less happy circumstances.”
“I … I have the packet on me,” he stammered. “I wanted to show it to you last night, but I was afraid. I told you Veech had threatened my family. Yesterday he spoke of hurting one of my children if I didn’t obey him. I never would have, my lady, as God is my witness. I was going to take the packet home with me, and burn it.”
Lady Isabella stopped smiling and came towards him; she looked tormented, as though on the verge of some similar admission. Then a resigned sadness crossed her face, and she hugged him, as he might have hugged his sons. “You are a good man, sir, and he is a monster.”
“No, I am weak. And I must convince Veech that I am weaker yet and in his power, or you and I will both be undone. He must find nothing here that could link you to Lord Digby or to Beaumont – no letters, or … lines in their writing.” At once he knew from her eyes: she had guessed he had seen that inscription in her book. “Let me give you the evidence now, and you can destroy it.”
“We’ll destroy it together,” she said. “He can search all he likes. He will find nothing.”
Veech knocked around three of the afternoon. He sniffed at Draycott as he pushed past into the kitchen. “Sweet as a rose, sir. Stanton tells me you wandered out of her house early this morning. Did you fuck her?”
“By God, no. It was the strangest night of my life.” Draycott had little trouble matching his face to the story he had rehearsed: it was enough to remember spending into Lady Isabella’s agile hand while she delved the fingers of her other into a forbidden place. “She must have drugged me. She served me some wine that dizzied me, upon the second or third glass.”
“Did you hide the packet?”
Draycott rubbed his temples as if his head throbbed. “Yes, in the gallery, while I was briefly alone – I … I must have put it somewhere among her books, but my senses were growing confused by then.”
“Did she attempt to question you, in your befuddled state? Did she ask you about me?”
“Not that I recall, though I can’t be sure. I wanted to leave, but she insisted that I lie down in her guest chamber. And I knew no more until dawn. I let myself out of the house – everyone else must have been still asleep.”
“Could she have seen you hide the packet?”
“No – she had gone to prepare the chamber for me.”
“What accounts for your scented skin?”
“The bed linen reeked with perfume. In the morning it nearly made me sick.”
Veech examined him solemnly. “You understand what a poisonous, conniving bitch she is, Mr. Draycott. She had hoped to make you talk. That’s why we have to entrap her. Now let’s go a-hunting.”
They took a hackney coach to the Strand, where Corporal Stanton and a half-dozen militia were gathered on the steps of Sir Montague’s house. When Lucy answered the door, Veech shoved her aside and barged through to the entrance hall. “Summon your mistress to the gallery,” he told her. “Mr. Draycott, lead the way for me and Corporal Stanton. You stay below,” he ordered the troopers.
In the gallery Corporal Stanton fidgeted with his hat, inspecting the imprints of his muddy boots on the polished floor. “What a business for her ladyship,” he said to Draycott.
Lady Isabella entered and addressed them calmly. “Corporal, Mr. Draycott, and … who are you, sir?”
“He is Mr. Clement Veech, my lady, servant to Mr. Oliver St. John,” Stanton said.
“This warrant signed by Mr. St. John licenses me to search the premises,” said Veech, thrusting it at her.
She read it, and thrust it back. “Your charge is pure slander, as I shall inform him. And I will not allow a search of this house in the absence of my husband.”
“My lady, begging your pardon,” said Stanton, “you cannot deny him access: he has the authority.”
Veech was surveying her as he might a pox-ridden drab who had tried to proposition him. “How many apartments are there?”
“The gallery here, a dining parlour, and the bedchambers – mine, my husband’s, and one more for our guests – and my husband’s dressing closet and study. Downstairs are the servants’ quarters, the kitchen, scullery, and pantry, and the privy offices. And beneath are Sir Montague’s cellars, a storeroom, and the cesspit.”
Veech limped out, and Draycott heard him telling the men, “Start with the guest bedchamber.” He returned and meandered about the gallery, lifting the tapestries and brocade curtains to squint behind them. He halted by a table, on which a pile of books was tidily stacked, and opened one book after another. “Latin and Greek, my lady! I thought your husband was a man of commerce.”
“Most of those are gifts from his patrons,” she said. “He cannot decline them, even if he has no aptitude for languages.”
Veech held each book by its bindings and smacked it against the edge of the table so that the leather cover ripped from the spine. He rifled through the pages, and dumped book upon book onto the floor by her feet; no Remedia Amoris, Draycott was relieved to notice.
“Mr. Veech, I must object!” cried Stanton, but he was interrupted by someone yelling from below.
“Corporal Stanton, sir, we’ve nabbed a thief.”
Stanton beetled his brows at Veech and stalked out. “You come, too,” Veech said firmly to Draycott.
On the front steps, two soldiers were restraining a thickset man whose wrists were tied together. He was crimson with indignation. “I know the rascal,” Stanton said. “He’s Peter Barlow of Southwark parish, and has served more than a few sentences in gaol as a housebreaker.”
“You can have no honest reason to
be in this neighbourhood,” snarled Veech. Then he drew Draycott aside. “He must be the same Barlow that lived at the old bawd Mistress Edwards’ house, and was Edward Price’s friend.”
“Is it against the law to walk the City freely?” Barlow protested; and the instant he spoke, Draycott identified him as the outraged citizen in Blackman Street, on the night of Beaumont’s escape.
“Have you seen him before, Mr. Draycott?” asked Veech.
Barlow met Draycott’s eyes without flinching. “No,” said Draycott, appreciating the irony: Veech would have been with him when he knocked on Barlow’s door, had Beaumont not fired that crippling shot.
“I admit, I did mill kens in the past,” Barlow said, “but I’ve been clean and above board these six long years, and there’s nowt to criminate me here. You must state your charge, or let me go.”
“He’s right, Corporal,” Draycott said.
One of the soldiers passed Stanton a cloth sack. “He threw it into the bushes as we took him, sir.”
Veech tore the sack from Stanton’s grip and pulled out of it a loaf of bread with a tiny corner nibbled away, as if by a mouse. He dug his fingers into the nibbled corner and withdrew a tight roll of paper that he unfurled; and his mouth stretched into a grin. He gave the paper to Draycott.
“What does this mean?” said Draycott, privately horrified: the minute lines of script upon it resembled the cipher of the documents he and Lady Isabella had burnt.
Veech spoke into his ear. “Did you not have a look inside the packet I gave you?”
“No. Why would I?”
Veech pointed at the script. “The figure is Lord Digby’s, copied by me from a cache of his letters Parliament had seized, at the outbreak of the war. And I invented as evidence against her ladyship a most treasonous conspiracy, inspired by her husband’s barrels and poor Sir Everard, Digby’s ancestor. She was watching you, sir, when you imagined yourself alone in the gallery. She got her hands on that packet and wrote out the contents while you slept.” Veech was correct, Draycott realised, except in the details; but why had she not told him in the morning? So that was the cause of her tormented look! Did she mistrust him, or could he no longer trust her? He thought he might faint. His belly cramped, and he vomited onto the pavement. “You’re not to blame she had the better of you,” Veech said cheerfully. “Now we have her, and I’ll soon learn where Barlow was to deliver his loaf of bread. Corporal,” Veech said in a louder voice to Stanton, “convey the thief under guard to Derby House.” Stanton was eyeing them both uneasily. “Not a word to her about Barlow and our discovery,” Veech said to Draycott. “Let’s go upstairs, and I’ll show you how she spied on you.”
They found Lady Isabella standing by the fireplace with her arm around Lucy, whose goggle-eyed fear reflected Draycott’s own. “I must talk to Corporal Stanton,” Lady Isabella said. “Where is he?”
Veech ignored her. “Mr. Draycott, lift up that tapestry of the Devil tempting Jesus, and see what’s behind it.”
Draycott obeyed. There were two holes in the wood-panelled wall, and in the fabric of the tapestry, two holes cut to correspond. Without Veech’s prompting, as if in a hateful dream, he went from the gallery into the parlour and reached up to the canvas of Sir Montague’s father. He ran his fingers over the eyes, and touched two grooves: the original eyes had been excised, and a slat painted to match inserted underneath. He left the parlour, to study the panelled wall between it and the gallery. When he pressed it with both hands, it shifted, and a door the span of his shoulders creaked wide. On the inner side of the door was a metal bolt. He squeezed into the space. Thin shafts of light from the gallery allowed him to locate, on the opposite wall, a hinged slat. He slid it away: a perfect view of the parlour; and through the holes facing the gallery, also a perfect view. And he remembered the eyes he had seen move, and the sneeze that had stopped his embraces.
He stumbled out and into the gallery, feeling nauseous again. “Who was hiding there last night?” he demanded of Lady Isabella, though he wanted to know as well about those other occasions.
“No one. It is my husband’s secret,” she confessed, with a mixture of shame and disgust. “He cannot have release like most men. He must view others, covertly, to achieve it. Before our marriage, he would hire pimps and whores to perform lewd acts for him while he looked on.”
Veech was laughing. “How the idle rich amuse themselves, eh, Mr. Draycott? My lady,” he said in a new, polite manner, “your distress gives me pause for thought. If you will write and sign a declaration that neither you nor Sir Montague is involved in any conspiracy against Parliament, I’ll postpone my inquiries until he is home.”
“I shall be pleased to deny the spurious charge, Mr. Veech, if you would order all of your men to quit this house at once. Including you, sir,” she added, to Draycott.
“The troopers can go, my lady,” said Veech, “and Mr. Draycott and I will stay only to supervise the phrasing of your declaration. It must be unequivocal.” He went out to the head of the stair, and began shouting for the troops to leave.
With his back to the doors, Draycott bounded over to Lady Isabella and mouthed, “Veech has Barlow and your copy of the evidence. All he needs now to convict you is a sample of your writing.”
“Does he suspect you?” she mouthed.
“No – he thinks you saw me hide the packet. I lied to him that I had planted it.”
Her expression changed, and she spoke in a cold, clear tone. “I wonder how you live with yourself, Mr. Draycott, after your pretence of affection towards me.”
“I might wonder the same of you,” Draycott retorted, imitating her humiliated distaste. He swung round; Veech was in the doorway, arms folded across his chest.
“Get your mistress pen and paper,” Veech told Lucy. “Why the long face, sir?” he said amiably to Draycott. “Your work here is almost done.”
II.
“What a shit hole,” Tom said; he and Laurence were gazing up at the dingy plastered front and broken windows of the Green Dragon Inn.
“Tom,” said Laurence, “don’t let him aggravate you, and don’t be surprised by what I might say to him. And keep that sword of yours sheathed, unless we’re attacked first.”
He walked ahead of Tom into the close, smoke-filled taproom. War had not changed life for this underbelly of society: a dismal crew were tippling in an atmosphere pervaded by the stink of rancid fat, cheap ale, and sweat. A girl pranced on a table to the tune of a pipe and a tin drum, her breasts bared and her skirts hiked to the thighs; and in the near corner, a grizzled veteran puked onto the floor, to the satisfaction of a dog that lapped at the spreading pool.
Tom nudged Laurence’s elbow. “That’s his valet, Diego, over there.”
Diego beckoned them through the taproom into a quieter, brighter chamber. In an alcove to one side was a small table lit by a branched candlestick where a dark gentleman sat by himself. “Los hermanos Beaumont,” Diego announced, and went back into the taproom.
Nothing could have prepared Laurence for the shock as Antonio de Zamora stood up and bowed. Dressed in a soldier’s leather coat with a plain white collar at his neck, and high riding boots, de Zamora wore a sword of English design at his hip. His full head of hair, cropped like Diego’s, was greying, as were his beard and moustache, and he was a little shorter than Laurence and a shade thicker through the waist. Yet they had the same high cheekbones and flare to their nostrils, and around de Zamora’s mouth were etched the same smile lines that Laurence saw when he looked in a glass; and, most strikingly, they had the same green eyes.
He appeared as taken aback by the sight of Laurence. Then he beamed. “Laurence and Thomas, I am beyond words to express my joy,” he said, in accented though fluent English. “Pray sit with me, sirs. I cannot recommend the food, but I have ordered wine to celebrate.” He motioned them to a bench, and distributed the wine. “Here’s to your very good health on our special night.”
“And to yours, Don Antonio,” sai
d Laurence.
“Your health,” Tom said curtly.
De Zamora was studying Laurence, fascinated. “Did you get these in the war abroad?” He stroked his own cheekbone and lower lip where Laurence’s were scarred.
“No, sir,” Laurence replied, wondering what Tom told the man about him.
De Zamora next inspected the deeper scar on Laurence’s left wrist, as if he had known where to locate it. “And how did you get this one?”
“From a game of cards.” Laurence switched to Spanish. “Is it your first visit to England, Don Antonio?”
De Zamora switched also. “Yes, and I am sorry to say I find your country uncongenial. The sun has no warmth, the cooking is tasteless, and the wine worse than vinegar. The streets smell of ordure which even your incessant rains don’t clear away. Englishmen are generally coarse-featured and ugly. There are a few pretty women, but there can be few chaste ones – the humblest orange seller in El Andaluz would blush at their immodest comportment.”
“I have no objection to it,” Laurence said, shrugging.
“Were you ever in Spain?”
“Two years ago, after I grew tired of fighting in the Low Countries.”
“Whereabouts did you travel?”
“From the Pyrenees to Cádiz.”
“A long way. Did you visit Seville?”
“Alas not, sir.”
De Zamora winked at him. “The sevillanas are the comeliest in all of Spain. Some say it is because of their pure stock.”
“Pure stock? One may talk of that in horses, but not in men and women.”
“I beg to disagree. For example, the royal house of Hapsburg has interbred for generations to ensure the purity of their line.”
“A dubious practice, to judge by the size of their chins.”
De Zamora guffawed, and slammed his cup on the table. “Oh yes, they have jaws like lanterns! Thank God there were no such deformities in our family. Did my cousin, your mother, ever confide in you the rumour that somewhere in the past, infidel blood had sullied her father’s noble strain?”
The Licence of War Page 38
